The weather is beautiful, sunny and fabulous for fall. I think we deserve a little dry, nice fall weather this year as things have been wet for too long. The last of the summertime items come in your box this week: cucumber, green beans, peppers, raspberries, and tomatoes.

Use the tomatoes in a timely manner as many of them are ripe. To test if a tomato is ripe, squeeze it gently and if it’s hard, it’s not ripe. If it gives slightly, it’s ripe. Although we have not yet had a frost here, the outdoor tomatoe plants are spent and ready to be turned in.

As the nights start to dip into the 40s, our cooking styles change as we happily fire up the oven to warm the kitchen. Smells from the slow cooker fill the house and help make eating a warm dinner while juggling busy school and work schedules doable. The possibility of home baked fresh bread even starts to enter my realm of thinking again now that life falls more into a rhythm and darkness forces us to go inside our homes earlier in the evening.

As we work our way through the fall garden, we happily discovered that our cylindrical beets were more abundant than we had realized. Thankfully, we now have several bushels of beets to store and do not have to fret about the loss of our late seeded beets due to flooding. The winter squash were also very abundant and we have a trailer load in the field, up off the ground so the field mice can’t reach them.

The jalapeño peppers are a crop that just keeps giving. I have included a fresh salsa recipe above which uses many items in your box: onions, garlic, tomatoes, cilantro, green peppers, and jalapeños. Remember to be careful cutting open a fresh jalapeño. You may want to wear gloves when taking out the seeds and ribs inside the jalapeño as the oils will stay on your hands and you could touch your eye/lips and feel the burn. Taking out the seeds and ribs of the jalapeño reduces how spicy the jalapeño peppers are and gives some nice heat without overwhelming you. Use as much jalapeño in a recipe as you desire spiciness.

Our last regular pizza nights have ended and only a few special events are scheduled for October. We can breathe a little deeper and prepare to finish the last of the fall planting and harvesting.